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Challenge for Dancers
Excerpt from the book "El Tango, historia de medio
siglo, 1880/1930", by Francisco García Jiménez, Editorial
Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1964.
Excerpted by Guillermo Bosovsky. |
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"El Cachafaz"
(Benito Bianquet, on his papers) arrived at Palermo from the A.B.C.
salon, in the neighborhood of el Abasto, center of his prowesses, which
already expanded towards all the directions of "la milonga". His erect
slim figure was not completely ugly in spite of his pock-marked face.
The natural elegance of his dancing movements was interrupted in raptures
of the devilish sparkling of his feet, gaiter-shaped in varnished black
kidskin with gray suede leg and military heel.
That evening "El
Cachafaz" appeared in Palermo without partner. As usual, a brave
loyal friend was behind him, he was known as "El Paisanito". Santillán,
who was at a table surrounded by friends, saw them coming in as intruders.
Some time elapsed. Tangos followed one after another. All of a sudden,
el pardo stood up and stepped out to dance with his partner. "El Cachafaz",
motionless and quiet until then, glanced around and saw a lonesome woman.
He made a nod to her. The woman said yes with her head and walked towards
him. Embraced to dance a tango they stepped out to follow the dancers
path. There was among them something like an ordering voice, unheard,
which made them exclude themselves out of the dancing floor, until leaving
only those two at issue.
![]() "Tango", by Ernesto Drangosch. On the field roosters can be tried. Troy was burnt
on Hansens wooden floor. To an embellished "corrida" by el pardo,
"El Cachafaz" answered with
imagined figures and solved them "on the spur of the moment" and transmitted
them to the spontaneous understanding of the unknown partner. Defeated
once and again, el pardo Santillán lost space. In reality, "El
Cachafaz" more than a dancer, was a sorcerer! About his dancing "cortes"
a legendary fame has spread, similar to the fighting "visteo" of Juan
Moreira.
There was intention of quarrel, on the side of Santillán´s
people . "El Paisanito" jumped into the dancing floor pulling out the
"fiyingo", that knife with thin blade and very sharp edge which those
"guapos" (tough men) wore under the left armpit, in the opening of the
waistcoat. It was not the vain intent to be courageous against so many.
"El Paisanito" finished his daring deed with another no less spectacular.
He threw the "fiyingo" with its sharp end directed to the floor, tensely
nailing it, and shouted to his friend:
-Give them the sweet! "El Cachafaz"
gave it to them. If the Montevidean milonguero negro according
to Rossi- seemed to dance "on the deck of a ship sailing in a stormy
sea", let us imagine "El Cachafaz" as the very metaphoric ship amongst
whirling waves, swaying to and fro his partner postures. A funnel of
the fantastic whirlwind was the knife nailed into the floor and, close
to it, "El Cachafaz"´s feet multiplying a hundred electrifying
ornaments, "shaving" the trousers bottom in the sharp steel.
This happening drew to the top "El
Cachafaz"´s fame and darkened that of "pardo"´s. Because
on that occasion the news spread from north to south -and vice versa!-
showed four convincing reasons:
-El "Cacha" defeated them with tango, with knife, without partner and without gang. So the Abasto dancer was eponym of a tango which as
a tribute Aróztegui
composed, that of "El apache argentino".
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